The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #182

#182: "Jerk It Out" (2002) - The Caesars

I gotta admit: I didn't hear this one (and most others didn't, either) until it appeared on on iPod commercial; so, say all you want about selling out, but if it weren't for the Swedish band The Caesars selling out to Steve Jobs, then most of the world would have never heard this song (ad nauseum by now, as it's been featured all over the place since), and most likely The Caesars wouldn't have been able to continue their recording career...though eventually, it probably won't add up to much (except for the fact that, oh, these musicians can have a roof over their heads, a meal in their bellies, and money for medicine for a little bit longer) as far as their legacy is concerned, because they'll probably never top this one. I've heard most of their other songs, and none come near it (in terms of quality or popularity).

What makes the song great is it's synth-organ, its sound coming straight from the mid-to-late sixties garage/punk era, the post-British Invasion era of Western rock and roll, the psychedelic scene, where much more often than not, the organ took precedence over the guitar (e.g. "96 Tears," "Liar, Liar," "She's About a Mover," "Double Shot of My Baby's Love," "Dirty Water," etc...) by carrying the melody and giving the record its feel. The synth-organ domintates "Jerk It Out": the song opens with it, the main riff is played on it, and it gives the song a bit of a paranoid, drugged out edge without ever bogging down into any purple haze. It's also immediately identifiable: it's one of the catchiest organ riffs of all time.

The song would work well as an instrumental (and it still would have made this chart that way, too), but the vocal (and vocal production) and lyric add a bit of sexual mystique to it. It's not always easy to decipher what singer Cesar Vidal (sounding a bit like Oasis' Noel Gallagher) is saying, but on the chorus he's clear, and then the music stops for him to sing the song's title. What does "jerk it out" mean anyway? Well, the first guess would be masturbation. Easy enough, right? Of course, it could mean preparation for urination, or it could mean preparation for intercourse, or it could mean flashing someone, or it could just be a metaphor for letting one's self go, letting off steam, letting it all hang out (as the Hombres would say). Vidal, in the song, never really spells it out, and so we're left to wonder while the organ keeps us pumping along.

Yrp -jerk it out-
by luluetcompagnie